SIX PREACHERS, ALL OF THEM CALLED.
[The following letter reveals the condition of one out of many neighborhoods scattered all over the South, densely populated with negroes, neglected by the whites, excepting as the agent or overseer of the plantation looks after the owner’s interests as connected with the labor of the people. No schools, no churches, excepting such as are ministered to by preachers as ignorant and, in many cases, as licentious as the people themselves. Just think of it! The visit of this Sunday-school agent the first visit of a white Christian to the hundred families; their religious and other culture such as those six preachers could give! And this not in Central Africa, but in the very heart of the southwest portion of our own land! These people citizens of our republic, and voters!—Ed. Miss.]
A missionary of the American Sunday-School Union in the Southwest writes:
“I recently organized a Sunday-school for the colored people at Homan Station, on the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern R. R., in Miller County, between Texarkana and the Red River, where is a large cotton plantation, and two others are near, having in all more than one hundred families. Among them is one Baptist church, and six preachers, every one ‘called!’ Only two of them can read, and the pastor or ‘head-preacher’ is blind; and so are all, in spiritual things, preachers and people. After delivering an address, I found that only seven in the audience could read. In all, fifty adults and children joined the Sunday-school and promised to learn to read. I furnished them with primers, Bibles, Testaments, etc., which seemed to please the plantation agent or overseer as well as the people.
“After the school was organized, the blind preacher gave a sermon from Rev. xxii. 1, 2, another preacher doing the reading. I shall not attempt to characterize the sermon, singing and responses. When will white Christians, who know the way of life, surrender their prejudices and teach these poor, benighted people the truths of the Gospel? My visit was the first made by a white Christian worker to this place, and will be remembered.”